Guglielmo Farnese

Guglielmo Farnese was a relative of Giulia Farnese and Alessandro Farnese (the future Pope Paul III). Farnese became a merchant, trading goods and services as far as Istanbul. In 1499, he told his relatives about the rumors that Pope Alexander VI had gone away on a spiritual retreat to avoid his own daughter Lucrezia Borgia, towards whom he had incestuous desires. Farnese befriended Lucrezia's husband Alfonso of Aragon, and he led him to a meeting of ten cardinals, where the cardinals said that only Lucrezia could save the church while controlling civic matters and foreign policies as regent to her father.